V. (Ghost in the machine)

Several people who I know irl and should know better, have, in recent days, credulously shared conspiracy theories with me about the Epstein Files and Savannah Guthrie and idk I think everyone’s brains are getting worse.

a werewolf in front of a house wearing a ‘BE MINE’ heart and holding a sign that reads ‘THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE’ above a photo of bad bunny

a neighbor set up this werewolf for halloween and instead of taking it down they just update it with seasonal outfit changes. now it’s dressed for valentine’s day and holding a sign with a picture of bad bunny and his super bowl slogan. i love him.

My neighbour here in 🇨🇦 , love it to death

I can theoretically understand how a person might develop feelings for a chatbot I guess, but I've seen the logs, and all those things talk like a sentient Tumblr account got a job as an HR manager

Surge pricing for plasma

these two young white guys on IG go to an NYC restaurant each week to try food from a different country. they posted a video bringing together the owners of their first 12 stops & it made me cry bc it was simple & beautiful. just people from all over the world hanging & being pals. how it should be.

YouTube video by Meta Meta's Early Detection and Disruption Work

Meanwhile Meta is bragging that they can get their own users arrested, Minority Report style.

Tech is a culture

So Moltbook was human-orchestrated performance art. This is exactly the sort of thing you would expect when a bunch of people want to believe in a shared collective delusion and engage in performing the belief publicly as a means of convincing other people to suspend their disbelief.

Collective make-believe is going to get us all killed

I’m currently writing a book about the attempted Nazi demonstration in Skokie in 1977. This is indistinguishable from how American Nazis talked in public.

Aw man, I’ll miss you :( Hope you pop up again one day, you really have some insights that aren’t being heard enough out there.
And as an aside, sometime I’d love to talk to you for the podcast. I’m always down to talk writing this stuff out too, I’m in the same position you are p much. :/

Great thread for those (like me) who missed 90+% of the symbolism in the halftime show

I for one welcome Woke Elmo with open arms.

Whatever vibe in the culture that was shifting right is dead. Over a hundred million Americans watched and enjoyed a Spanish language performance about love and family, and a tiny crowd of losers streamed a used up Kid Rock lip syncing 20 year old hits.

It does really hit you that American artists of color continue to make these aesthetically incredible, thematically rich works of art and the white supremacists that rule this country are just complete dullards

Also, willfully confuse radio and radium so you can get cross-marketing/innovation attention.

ANYWAY, time to give the memory of Bernays another swirlie.

It's an even more apt one in that, circa 1920, you needed to put radium into everything to get attention/funding. If you didn't have a way to do that then, by jiminy, you damn well better find a way to work the word "radium" into the name of your product/service/company.

Bullshit never changes.

I really do think this is an excellent metaphor for the moment.

“I’m mad I can’t understand Bad Bunny’s lyrics because they’re not in English”

my brother millions of metalheads around the world have been happily listening to incomprehensible Finnish shrieks and Japanese death grunts since we were teens, you’re just boring and racist

Consider all the drivers, hotel staff, and restaurant staff that these people have exposed while taking their annual victory lap around ending the right to an abortion

it's wild how much skiing in particular benefits from these insanely cool drone shots

Anytime I see Jeff Bezos mentioned I remember the time he flew to space with William Shatner and when a very emotoinal Shatner was trying to describe the experience Bezos interrupted by spraying champagne like an idiot child

If I hear one more iteration of "there won't be historians in a hundred years" I'm going to headbutt someone. I know every generation feels like the world ends with them, but take it from a historian: it doesn't.

big bird on a horse carriage with a whip, yelling: WE RIDE AT DAWN, BITCHES

someone with the name “Martinez” just won a special election as a democrat with a 24 point landslide on a 37 point baseline swing in a super rural state district in L O U I S I A N A

My view has started to become that the Internet has sort of bifurcated, so that you have the whole universe of constant soulless branding and "content" churn, but there are lots of places where insight, art, and community are still valued.

i honestly don't know what the Dem electeds are afraid of, what are they waiting for?

ending ICE is popular, and it also has the important virtue of being the right thing to do

have some courage!

It feels like there is a very real risk for any of the pretension we had of being a society to come off as we descend into a Barbarism of the Dipshits.

Letter from Senator Ron Wyden: Dear CIA Director Ratcliffe, I write to alert you to a classified letter I sent you earlier today in which I express deep concerns about CIA activities. Thank you for your attention to this important matter. Sincerely, Ron Wyden U.S. Senator

I don’t like this